InaBind
by IllRatte
Summary: Everyone has a soulmate. The so-called perfect match, the one that makes life worth living. But somehow, the thought only leaves Gavin Reed with terror. Luckily for him, for the past 36 years, he’s lived happily without his soulmate. But after a chance meeting with a mysterious prototype, his whole world is about to change. (Trans Gavin)


Ever since Gavin could remember, he had dreaded meeting his soulmate.

While his friends had all spent their early years waiting for their match, many sleepovers spent daydreaming about a handsome soulmate coming to sweep them off their feet, of bursting into the telltale white light that demarcated finding your "one true other", Gavin had spent his with a knot in his stomach at the thought of his whole life being upheaved. Because as far as society was concerned, finding your soulmate was the beginning and ending of your being. It was the reason people were born, to be the "half" that created the "whole".

But all it meant for Gavin was pain. He had spent his school years lonely, trying desperately to fake a connection to the longing that so many of the girls he had befriended held towards the concept. But somehow, they could sense the distance he felt towards their daydreams of whatever famous, unbonded man they had set their eyes on. While they had seen it as him being a lesbian, othered him in some fear that he would never, could never enact on them, Gavin still found little solace in the group of outcasts he was shafted into.

It wasn't that he disliked men. Their bodies were fine to him, and the bodies of men like himself more than fine. It was the bonding that terrified him. Somehow, nothing seemed more repulsive than being absolutely enamored with one person, of having his whole personhood ripped away, his dreams shattered, with pleasing his partner the only thing to look forward to. And the thought of bonding with a woman, of being attached to and belonging to one forever, like how so many of Gavin's newfound friends desired, still set his teeth on edge. His loneliness only grew as he watched his friends pair off, their soulmates somehow so close at hand.

Leaving for college was a relief. With few friends left, and a growing uneasiness ripe inside of him, the safety from his peers and parents let him explore, let him reinvent himself.

The first time someone called him Gavin, he thought his problems were solved. The wrongness, the distance. Surely his problem with being bonded lay in the expectation of himself being a woman with a man, instead of him being a man and his husband like he was supposed to be. But as the euphoria quieted into a subtle lull, the uneasiness remained.

Gavin moved on from college, again leaving many friends behind. Even more had found their perfect match, and summarily decided they didn't need him in their life.

But Gavin didn't care. He had moved out from home, gone through the academy and gotten a job, using the money to pay for the new wardrobe and hormone treatments he desperately desired. The hormones were a hard won battle, with many therapist appointments spent with Gavin begging and pleading. Most trans people weren't allowed to transition before finding their soulmate. Fear of a theoretical cis person (most trans people bonded with other trans people, of course) being disappointed outweighed the well-being of tangible trans people. Only the persuasion of his brother, semi estranged but already a "big wig" in the tech industry, had let him go on the treatment. But surgery was out of the question, not that Gavin particularly desired it. Gavin's body was for himself only, and any further alterations of it felt like an attempt to please cis people.

And as he settled into his life, for the first time in a long while, he was content. People had pitied him, of course, from fellow officers to the few hookups he had. Many took being unbonded at his age as some form of divine punishment. Because how ever could someone live fully without their "other half"? Gavin ignored it, like he had so many years before.

He advanced to detective, made friends, bought cats, moved apartments. Dealt with the upset of androids being added to the police force. And now, he dealt with the monotony of day to day life.

Gavin tapped his fingers against his desk, browsing the wall of messages that had somehow piled up in the hour that passed after he was supposed to be at work and before he arrived. The coffee in his hand was cold, a sure sign to get a new one if he wasn't under the laser focus of a particularly disgruntled Captain.

As he decided what to ignore on the wall, a new message popped up on screen. Gavin clicked it with a sigh. Of course, it had to be another case involving androids.

While it had been a year since the revolution, androids were still a prime target for hatred. With the discovery that they, like humans, had soulmates, even forming bonds with humans, Android marriage had quickly been forced into law, far sooner than most of the populace was ready for. That had spiked hate crimes, with unbonded young men seeing them as the reason for their deprivation of a soulmate. Or more recently, it led to the destruction of androids in Cyberlife's vaults.

Most vaults had been emptied, as per the androids emancipation demands, but a few, mostly filled with prototypes and unfinished experiments, those unsuitable to be released into the public, had remained, deactivated and abandoned. And just as Gavin's luck would have it, he was assigned to work on a new break in.

It was all hands on deck with them, crossing through Android Crime (Hank and his lovebirds realm) into Homocide (with the newly recognized personhood of androids).

As Gavin scrolled through the memo, eyes glazing over, Connor coughed politely. The android stood right in front of his desk, smile decidedly pleasant. "I see you have arrived, Detective. Would you like to head out now?"

"We the only ones assigned to this shit?"

Connor's lips pursed at the expletive. "Hank and I were assigned, alongside you. Some others are already at the crime scene. Hank will be driving us."

"Joy."

——-

As Gavin slumped into the back seat, face firmly positioned to stare out the window, he couldn't help but wince. Connor has offered him the passenger seat, but the thought of being privy to Hank "stealing" glances at Connor through the rear view mirror, with Connor playfully admonishing him to keep an eye on the road, made him sick. At least now he could ignore how Connor kept his hand pressed into Hank's thigh.

It wouldn't have bothered him so much, if Hank had been nobody. Gavin hardly flinched when he saw Ben with his soulmate, still tender despite the years of their relationship. But Hank was, had been, like him. Older than Gavin, yet still unmated. And coupled with the child he had out of bond-lock, he was an outcast. Even with the veneration from his skills, Hank was still cast with scrutiny from the more conservative members of the force.

Hank was prickly towards him at first, but Gavin didn't let that stop him, eventually pulling out bits and pieces of personal information from the Lieutenant. So, a quiet camaraderie had grown, from their disinterest in "the bonded life", as well as the sneaking suspicion Gavin held that Hank was trans like him. Gavin was stealth in his department, leaving him unable to comfortably ask Hank outright, but Hank's "vacation" surrounding Cole's birth had always left him suspicious.

But now, with Hank finding a mate in Connor, it was like he had lost him all over again. Even being at peace with his son's death, it seemed the man had no time for someone he had once considered a friend.

"I said, we're here." Connor's hand tapped his, and Gavin jumped. "You weren't responding." Connor gave him a tight smile.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm getting up." As he stepped out of the car, Gavin shivered. It was uncharacteristically cold for the middle of spring, ice and snow still latching onto whatever edifice they could find. The wind did little to help, only making him shrug his jacket closer.

"The perpetrator entered through the front door here, and proceeded into the storage areas. They've recovered two dead androids already, seeming to have been activated prior to their murder." Connor briefed them as they entered through the main doorway. Like all Cyberlife warehouses, the building jutted to impossible heights, glass and steel surrounding the structure.

It was in a sparsely populated area, halfway into the wilderness, but entirely abandoned. An old military holding facility, probably a dumping ground for Cyberlife's failed experiments.

The hallway echoed with their footsteps, traveling only to fade into the chatter emanating from a doorway on the left.

"Murder? So were they deviated beforehand? And how the fuck did they activate?"

"Cyberlife had an "All On" signal installed in their newest models. Perhaps the killer triggered that. And we can't be sure, but the stress from the attack may have caused the deviation." Connor winced as he said the last words.

Stress was the right word, Gavin mused. While most of the blue blood had dried off from the cold walls, what did remain painted a gory picture. Large swatches of concrete glowed sickly blue. "Where did they find the bodies?"

"Right through that door seems to be where they were dispatched. The two they found were military-grade androids."

"Guess our killer bit off a little more than he could chew, right?" Gavin flicked his eyes back to the blood. Still, none of it appeared to be human.

"Perhaps."

The room was small, with another doorway off to the side. The two androids limbs had been laid out in an X pattern, faces to the floor. Other officers killed around.

"Do they think this is connected to the other killings? Or just some type of copycat?" The DPD had had a few reports of android murders, the usual type written off as single-incident hate crimes. Mostly single, unbonded android men. The type that most wouldn't care if they went missing.

"Fowler doesn't want to call it that yet. But the details of the positionings were never reported..."

"Too scared of the press?" Gavin snorted. Fowler preferred to "play shit safe" when it came to serial killers; the last thing the man wanted was the press crawling all over his station.

"Most likely. We should bring this up to him."

"Yeah, yeah. You can do that shit." Gavin mumbled, pacing around the bodies. Someone had gone at the androids with a knife, by the looks of it, before finishing them off with a shot to the head. "Looks like they had fun with it."

"Hey! You're gonna want to see this!"

Chris. Gavin whipped his head up, mouthing "What?!" At him.

"Is it another body?"

"An android, still alive. Some military prototype model. We think he was activated when the others were, but… he hasn't deviated yet." Chris's eyes lingered on Connor as he said it.

"I can interface with him! That way, I can help him deviate."

"And help us get information. Chris, lead the way."

They followed him through another door, leading into a larger chamber. Despite the year of abandonment, the air smelled damp. Like snow and ice had somehow crept inside the farthest crevices of the building, shooting it through with mildew and decay. Or more likely, whatever fluid that had once floated in the tanks that lined the wall, glass shattered long ago, had tainted the floor. The stench made Gavin want to vomit.

Gavin's eyes scanned the rest of the room, alighting on the group of people swarming the far corner. A crisp white jacket was the only blip in the landscape of dark blue. The android was tall, towering a good few inches above the officers, thick brown hair visible even from so far away.

"... was able to get a voice sample from the intruder. While it doesn't match any of my records, I'm sure a full profile and investigation will allow us to find someone measuring up to it."

The voice was new, deep enough to match the height, and cut through with the tiniest crackle of static. Over a year locked away had done the android surprisingly little damage.

"And why couldn't he have apprehended the killer himself, if he's such a hotshot?" Gavin shot the question at Chris.

"The door was sealed tight from the outside. We only opened it because we could hear him moving around."

"Whatever." It seemed even a newly activated android was trying to upstage him at his own damn job.

"What do you think his functions are? He's probably a prototype, like me! I bet he'll want me to show him around." It seemed with Hank in the other room, it fell to Gavin to amuse the android.

"Gee whiz! Maybe he'll let you suck his dick!"

Before Connor could respond, either to chastise him for inappropriate work behavior, or to inquire how that would work since he was already bonded, Gavin sped up.

The new android seemed concerned by their commotion, head tilting up and eyes locking on Connor.

"Fucking hell." It was Connor's double. Connor's taller, bulkier, blue eyed (??) double.

In the seconds that it took both Connor and Gavin to process that information, it seemed the android realized the implications of the similarities.

"Stand back, deviant! Or I will shoot!" The android brandished his gun at Connor, jabbing it in emphasis. It had all of its attention on Connor.

Gavin crept forwards.

"I'm not- Don't do this. You don't know what you're doing!"

"I said, stand back-"

Gavin was only two feet away now. He shoved his hand out hard, futilely pushing at the androids taught wrist. All that earned him was the android's deep blue eyes locking on him and-

People were never consistent on what, exactly, triggered the soulmate bond, triggered the awakening of the lifelong connection that had both sunk ships and built empires. Some claimed it was the first touch that triggered it, the first contact where you could truly feel the heat of your other on you. Others held that it was when the eyes first met, or at least when firm eye contact was first established.

But Gavin supposed It was both of them, together, that triggered it for the android. Because as his hand closed around the somehow pulsing wrist, and as their eyes locked together, the only immutable sign of a soulmate being found occurred- the android erupted in pure white light.


End file.
